Dispatches from the 10th Crusade

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The silly-clevers on the subject of babies

Adam Gopnik is a silly-clever at the New Yorker who thinks he has something to teach us all, and especially to teach Paul Ryan, about what Gopnik calls condescendingly "grownup thinking about abortion."

According to Gopnik, Paul Ryan said something very telling when he stated that his unborn daughter looked like a tiny bean on her first ultrasound and said that he and his wife have since then given her the nickname "Bean." This sets Gopnik off as follows:

But Ryan’s moral intuition that something was indeed wonderful here was undercut, tellingly, by a failure to recognize accurately what that wonderful thing was, even as he named it: a bean is exactly what the photograph shows—a seed, a potential, a thing that might yet grow into something greater, just as a seed has the potential to become a tree. A bean is not a baby.

The fundamental condition of life is that it develops, making it tricky sometimes to say when it’s fully grown and when it isn’t, but always easy to say that there is a difference and that that difference is, well, human life itself. It is this double knowledge that impacts any grownup thinking about abortion: that it isn’t life that’s sacred—the world is full of life, much of which Paul Ryan wants to cut down and exploit and eat done medium rare. It is conscious, thinking life that counts, and where and exactly how it begins (and ends) is so complex a judgment that wise men and women, including some on the Supreme Court, have decided that it is best left, at least at its moments of maximum ambiguity, to the individual conscience (and the individual conscience’s doctor).

[snip]

But what real science has to tell us, of course, very different; it says that life has no neat on and off, that while life may in some sense begin at conception, the moment when the formed consciousness that distinguishes human life from bean life arises is a very different question, not reducible to a dogma or a simple claim. A bean isn’t a baby; a baby was once a bean, and between those two truths it is, or ought to be, every woman for herself.

Wow, Mr. Gopnik, thanks for setting us straight on what "real science" says. Is it really true that "real science" tells us only that life "may in some sense begin at conception"? Does "real science" tell us that there is no "neat on and off" (such as, you know, conception) for the beginning of a new, individual human life? Really? Maybe in Gopnik-world. But in the real world, real science tells us quite unequivocally that at conception a new human being, in the sense of a specific new human organism, comes into existence, and that that specific new human being was not in existence before. That specific new human individual then develops into a more and more mature human individual. This isn't actually that hard. It's real science, but it's not rocket science. It wouldn't even be controversial if we were talking about pig embryos or cow embryos. But since we're talking about human embryos and human fetuses, our pundits tell us, dismissively, that real science tells us only that "life may in some sense begin at conception" and, inaccurately, that science tells us that "life has no neat on and off."

Then there is the blatant equivocation on the term "life" when Gopnik tells us that "the world is full of life" and includes trees (which Grinch Ryan wants to cut down) and animals (which Evil Ryan wants to devour). Gopnik moves from life (or perhaps we should say Life) in this incredibly broad sense to "conscious, thinking life" with such blazing speed, asserting that it is "conscious, thinking life that counts" that we may momentarily miss the fact that he has presented us with a false dichotomy. This false dichotomy is emphasized by his unscientific insistence on conflating "human life itself" with a particular degree of consciousness.

It is not true that we must either be vitalists and treat every blade of grass as having equal value with ourselves or else adopt Gopnik's strategy of writing out of the human race everyone who isn't "conscious and thinking" (sufficiently to make him happy). What about, you know, individual human lives being what count? This is an option Gopnik doesn't consider, though I suppose we could guess that if he did consider it, he would bestow upon it the same shallow dogmatism that we see reflected here already.

"Conscious, thinking life," is it? Well, what about the standard pro-life point that a newborn baby is not conscious and thinking to anything like the degree that most personhood theorists are looking for? (That is why Peter Singer says that newborns don't have a right to life.) What about the fact that the newborn baby was an unborn baby just a few hours before and has not become more "conscious and thinking" merely in virtue of being born? If it is the mere fact that Ryan's unborn child didn't look like a baby that (for some implausible reason or other) has Gopnik's mind all twisted out of shape, what would Gopnik say to a ban on all abortions after, say, eight weeks' gestation or so, when the unborn child looks, by golly, just like a baby? Hint: He wouldn't go for it.

Then there is the arbitrariness argument that pro-lifers have been making ad infinitum--namely, that it is arbitrary to pick some particular level of present consciousness in the individual human being upon which to bestow the accolade of "life worthy of life." The human level of manifested, on-line consciousness ebbs and flows with various physical conditions, with anesthesia, deep sleep, or mental impairment, which may be either short-term or long-term.

Of course, one could go on and on, and this is all familiar ground to pro-lifers. Gopnik thinks he can get past it by a sneer, by stomping his foot, and by uttering, "A bean is not a baby." That's great, Mr. Gopnik, and fetal pigs aren't immature pigs either, then, I suppose? And this is science?

Let me raise a question here, preceded by a little background: The personhood theorists have been working in overdrive for several decades to find some way to cope with the manifest scientific facts to which Paul Ryan alluded. What they have come up with is the following silly-clever move: Pro-lifer points out that the unborn child is undeniably a new human being, a new biological individual of the race homo sapiens. Instead of denying that, pro-abort shifts to saying, "Yes, yes, but it's not a person. It's a person only if it has x or y degree of self-consciousness, and if you push the infanticide argument, you may discover to your surprise that I will bite the bullet on that one." This sort of pro-infanticidal personhood theory discussion has been entrenched in academic bioethics for several decades.

Why, then, in popular articles like this one and like the one I discussed here (and in the comments thread there as well) do pro-aborts still try so hard to obscure the scientific facts? Gopnik is handing us a sort of mish-mash of personhood theory and scientific obscurantism, but the obscurantism is still there. Why, if personhood theory will do the work? Why not just tell the whole world, openly, "The unborn fetus is a baby, but it's still okay to kill it"? Why not say, "Yes, of course, it's an unborn human being, an immature human being, but we say it's still okay to kill it, because we want it to be more self-conscious than it currently is"?

I submit that the reason we don't usually get such brutal honesty in the popular press is because too many members of the public haven't yet done enough work to suppress the natural law, the law written on the heart. They still know that killing babies is wrong, so pro-aborts have to try to confuse them and bamboozle them by saying that "life is everywhere," that "maybe in some sense life begins at conception" (as though the science on this question were uncertain), that "real science shows us that there is no neat on and off for life," and so forth. Let's hope that at least a few people who haven't yet got all their thoughts in order on the murder of the unborn are more put off by Gopnik's condescending air than they are befuddled by his silly-clever fog. Meanwhile, the fog is a testimony to a niggling sense among some abortion advocates that they can't quite afford to be too forthright.

Comments (47)

Let me raise a question here, preceded by a little background: The personhood theorists have been working in overdrive for several decades to find some way to cope with the manifest scientific facts to which Paul Ryan alluded. What they have come up with is the following silly-clever move: Pro-lifer points out that the unborn child is undeniably a new human being, a new biological individual of the race homo sapiens. Instead of denying that, pro-abort shifts to saying, "Yes, yes, but it's not a person. It's a person only if it has x or y degree of self-consciousness, and if you push the infanticide argument, you may discover to your surprise that I will bite the bullet on that one." This sort of pro-infanticidal personhood theory discussion has been entrenched in academic bioethics for several decades.

And amusingly they don't accept that this line of thought scales up. If a person of average intelligence can justify killing those babies with defects or who simply haven't progressed to "personhood," someone who is substantially smarter and stronger (such as a typical psychopath) can justify turning that logic on them. This is the second taboo that they don't want to bring up. If you accept the premise that the weak can be killed for any reason other than a crime, you open the door to higher predators (brilliant psychopaths, for example) preying upon lesser predators (the infanticidist pro-aborts).

They _want_ this "personhood line" to be, if not exactly a bright line, at least a stopping point for the right to life question. In other words, if you're a "person" on their definition, then it's wrong, according to their theory, to kill you for someone else's convenience or some other frivolous reason. (As utilitarians, they're never going to have an _absolute_ ban even on deliberately killing innocents whom they acknowledge to be persons.) The question does arise as to why "personhood" should work like that and why that should be the line. Why should being conscious of oneself as an individual (which I believe is Singer's idea) be enough? Once you take away the basic precept that all human beings are human persons, it's pretty difficult to get anything else principled going.

Here's a point brought up by an abortion supporter (keep in mind that as a Catholic I am pro-life in EVERY circumstance, including rape and life of the mother circumstances, so the point brought up is not my own): We consider an acorn a tree. So why do we consider a clump of cells a human being.

My first thought was, "Well when an acorn has reached the point where it will develop naturally into a tree then it IS the same thing, just at a lower developmental stage." While this is technically true it is hard for me to shake the uncomfortable feeling that we DO treat acorns and oak trees very differently.

I suppose the answer is obvious. Both, once they reach the point where they'll develop naturally, are indeed the same thing. But it did make me think.

Here is the answer to that question: The reason that acorns and trees are treated differently is because trees aren't (sorry, tree-huggers) of the kind of ultimate importance that human beings are. Hence, it isn't of tremendous significance that, in fact (this is true), there is a tiny embryonic tree inside of a tree-seed--that is, an acorn. Who cares? The value we place on trees really is related to ourselves--to what we need from trees, what we notice about trees, what we value from trees. So the fact that there is really a baby tree inside an acorn just isn't that big of a deal. It can't provide timber. It isn't awesome and big. It is soft rather than hard. This is what's important to us, because a tree is just a biological entity, period.

On the other hand, to admit that an embryonic human being really is an embryonic human being is a matter of vast importance. That there is a tiny baby human being inside the amniotic sac matters in a way that it doesn't matter that there is a tiny baby oak tree inside the acorn, because tiny baby human beings are a heck of a lot more important than tiny baby trees.

Then there is the blatant equivocation on the term "life" when Gopnik tells us that "the world is full of life" and includes trees (which Grinch Ryan wants to cut down) and animals (which Evil Ryan wants to devour). Gopnik moves from life (or perhaps we should say Life) in this incredibly broad sense to "conscious, thinking life" with such blazing speed, asserting that it is "conscious, thinking life that counts" that we may momentarily miss the fact that he ...

... ultimately contradicts his own worldview. For if it is true that it is "conscious, thinking life that counts", then if hardly matters if Ryan cuts down all the trees (most of them are weeds, anyway) and eats all the animals (all of which are dirty and smelly).

C Matt, cha-ching. (Were you intentionally alluding to The Borrowers, or was the resemblance accidental? Borrowers call larger people "human beans.")

Ilion, yes, it becomes evident that all that stuff about cutting down trees and eating animals medium rare is just a throwaway line. Demonization on the fly, as it were. Gopnik's piece is a mere political rant and isn't, shall we say, closely argued. He manages to drag the Taliban in there as well. It's a piece unworthy of a blog post and certainly unworthy of an allegedly upscale publication like the New Yorker. But I suppose the debased and blatantly politicized standards of the elderly grandees of the newspaper industry is scarcely news by this time.

Great, great post. Gopnik is horrible and condescending in so many ways in that blog post that it is hard to just pick out a couple. For example, I was particularly annoyed with the section you cut out above (your first "snip") that goes like this:

The cost of simplifying this truth is immense cruelty—cruelty to the bean when, truly developed, it becomes a frightened teen-ager who is to be compelled by law to carry her unwished-for pregnancy through with all the trauma that involves. This kind of cruelty—cruelty to real persons, killing the infidel in order to hasten him into heaven, stoning the fourteen-year-old girl in pursuit of some prophet’s view of virtue, forcing the teenager to complete her pregnancy to fulfill a middle-aged man’s moral hunches—is the kind of cruelty that our liberal founders saw with terror.

First of all, to call our founders "liberal" in the sense that Gopnik wants them to be is another clever-silly bit of rhetoric. But what I liked best about this section (and by "best" I mean it is the worst of his hysteria and lack of careful reasoning) was the idea that it is just as cruel to force a young teenager who gets pregnant and doesn't want the baby to carry that baby to term (i.e. enact laws that collectively will society to protect the innocent life inside her) as it is to kill infidels and stone women who commit sexual sins. I mean, can he be serious in equating the two acts to telling women, of whatever age, that it is not O.K. to kill their unborn children and if you as a women get pregnant we as a society will step in to protect that child from any harm you might want to cause him/her? Are liberals just insane these days and have abandoned their critical thinking skills when they write blog posts?

Please note in the comments that David Nickol tries, and fails, to come to Gopnik's defense. He is a regular on the First Thing blog posts and plays the left-wing religious caricature to perfection -- it just goes to show you that so-called religious people can also come down with a case of the "silly-clevers", usually when they want to avoid the clear implications of the natural law and Biblical teaching.

If Gian is right that David Nickol is actually an atheist, that removes the link to what I was going to say in response to Jeffrey's comment, but I'll say it anyway: I am disturbed by the number of self-styled Christians, and by the growth in that number, who are either pro-choice or else are confused and wishy-washy on the life issues. To my mind it shows quite starkly the fact that Christian belief is not sufficient all by itself to keep people from entertaining and even adopting horrible (not to mention stupid) views on these matters if that Christian belief is divorced from a full-orbed understanding of the natural law. The Zeitgeist is continually attacking not only the deliverances of revelation but also the insights of nature, and the latter need to be reaffirmed and defended for Christian young people.

By the way, Matthew Franck's piece is excellent, and several of his readers have great comments in response to David's Nickol's nonsense.

Gopnik's rhetoric is yet another example of the purely incantatory way that leftists use the word "science". They are not used to being challenged or interacting with intelligent people who disagree with them, and so they feel they can safely assume that their own parochial moral prejudices are derived from, and possess the epistemic authority of, the natural sciences. This is further underscored by the stupid moral equivalences he draws between the worst excesses of Islamism and social conservatism. His rant is just another example of liberal "condescension from below" of the first order. I've read so much of this same predictable snotty stuff from the likes of he and Maureen Dowd and Andrew Sullivan, et al, I think it would be possible to construct a random online generator for "Urban, educated liberal op-eds."

Are liberals just insane these days and have abandoned their critical thinking skills when they write blog posts?

Yes. Well, really the answer is "yes and no", but the "no" part is qualified in a way that the "yes" part is not.

Insanity is a mental departure from reality. It differs from mere error in its severity and in its breadth of application, and in its resistance to evidence: a person who is gravely in error about the framework of reality, and who cannot be convinced of his error by valid, reasonable evidence, is insane.

People who deliberately do wrong on occasion are deluding themselves on occasion: at the moment of sin they are telling themselves to attend to an apparent good and ignore the true good. (We all do this when we sin, it is part of the structure of the sinful act.) People who persistently sin eventually become vicious (i.e. vice-ridden): they acquire a _habit_ of deluding themselves as to the departure of apparent good from the true good, to the point that they begin to be unable to even see the difference, and unable to feel what true good would be like. That's what habit does to us. People who have made a life-long habit of not only departing from the true good in action but mentally making up internal stories as a pretense to justify the wrong, and who have convinced themselves of this pretense so as to be resistant to even rational evidence, are...insane.

This is one of the reasons why it is wrong to leave a child's moral development and religious training until he is "old enough to decide for himself". If a child grows up in vicious habits early on, he will be unable to choose a true picture of reality to adhere to. Good children may become bad men because of a repudiation of the difficult good, but vicious children normally become bad men but for the action of extraordinary grace to spring them out of their delusional world.

It is also why good culture must consist not only of the bare minimum, the absolute minimum of laws that say "do not directly and physically harm others", but of a whole complex of rules (some written, some customary) that support and encourage virtue in all its spheres so citizens are led more often than not to recognize, adhere to, and uphold the good, the true, and the beautiful, and thus can readily perceive the difference between truth and insanity, right and wrong. The virtue of its citizens is of concern of any state that doesn't want to have bunch of insane people running it.

I'm glad you made the comment you made, because I don't know why Gian thinks Nickol is an atheist -- he always links to his religious left-wing blog when he comments so it's not like he hides his beliefs. And the guy does get around. Here he is commenting on a Mirror of Justice post on the same topic:

P.S. Great comments Tony -- I'm going to copy and paste that language for some of my more liberal friends when they accuse me wanting to impose my values on others, I'll send them your comments and say something like "what values do you want your fellow citizens growing up with?"

A bean isn’t a baby; a baby was once a bean, and between those two truths it is, or ought to be, every woman for herself.

If I were to change this to:

A teenager isn’t a fetus; a teenager was once a fetus, and between those two truths it is, or ought to be, every woman for herself.

How would it function any differently other than lacking the pleasant alliteration? It is merely a statement of a personal opinion rather than some hard truth based in Science!. I think the New Yorker should break out of its bubble from time to time, as they apparently don't think they even have to try anymore.

but I'll say it anyway: I am disturbed by the number of self-styled Christians, and by the growth in that number, who are either pro-choice or else are confused and wishy-washy on the life issues. To my mind it shows quite starkly the fact that Christian belief is not sufficient all by itself to keep people from entertaining and even adopting horrible (not to mention stupid) views on these matters if that Christian belief is divorced from a full-orbed understanding of the natural law.

I don't think that's quite it. Many modern churches, especially "seeker-friendly" churches have tried to pare down Christianity to where it is just "be a good person, believe in Jesus and you'll be saved." They've deliberately avoided confrontation on issues like abortion because they don't want to "push anyone away." Furthermore, many of the Christians I've known are so scared of appearing "works-based" in their views of salvation that taking a stance like one that says any "Christian" who is pro-choice has effectively renounced Jesus Christ smacks of denying the sufficiency of having faith in Him and His atoning sacrifice. (Much to the horror of some of my relatives, this tendency has pushed me closer to the Catholic Church on many issues)

Bill -- I think the key to that acorn analogy is that (say) a white oak (Quercus alba) acorn is emphatically and beyond all question a member of the Quercus alba species, which membership is in no way conditioned by stage of development. Likewise an embryo is beyond question a member of the human species, which membership is in no way conditioned by stage of development.

The pro-choice conditioning of life on stage of development is monstrous: it excludes, based on the convenience of others, a whole class of human beings from legal protection of life, a class to which, incidentally, we all without exception once belonged.

Any 4th-grade biology teacher whose instruction sowed doubt and confusion in the minds of children about whether a white oak acorn is really a member of the Quercus alba species would be instantly recognized by every thinking liberal as a fraud or an incompetent.

Doesn't part of the answer also lie in the mere fact that an acorn is never an oak tree, but truly a seed, while the human embryo is never a seed, but truly (and fully) human from the beginning?

Right. A human embryo is not really analogous to a "seed" in the first place, for lots of reasons. The comparison is weird, but it's probably worth noting that the idea of human reproduction advancing by the implantation of extremely immature human "seeds" into the nourishing "earth" of a woman's womb is the same kind of basic biological error that led some scholastics to admit the permissibility of some very early-term abortions. So in a sense, the author is harkening back to a literally medieval conception of human biology in order to justify this crime--and doing so in the name of science.

A human embryo is not really analogous to a "seed" in the first place, for lots of reasons.

I disagree, since a seed is basically an embryonic plant. The scholastic error you cite sounds to me like some philosophical half-wits who couldn't grok the innate differences between animal and plant reproduction.

Literally, a plant seed _does_ contain an embryonic plant. As far as I know, that is basic plant biology. If you get a broken down microscopic diagram of the seed, you will actually find an embryonic plant inside the seed. What the pro-choicers do with this is that they say, "We don't treat (or think of, or whatever) an acorn the same way that we treat or think of an oak tree." This is just dumb. The way we "treat" an oak tree is that we rest under its shade or make boards out of it or enjoy looking at its swaying branches. All of these values-to-us, all of these ways-of-our-treating-it are indeed conditioned on its stage of development. You _can't_ make boards out of the embryonic oak tree inside the acorn, so of course we don't try. The ways that we treat and think of oak trees are all connected to the value of the oak tree to ourselves, which depends on more than the fact that a tiny member of the species exists. This attitude is perfectly legitimate w.r.t. trees. What the pro-choicers are therefore doing (though some of them may simply not _know_ that there is a tiny tree embryo inside a tree seed) is to induce us also to think of the human being in instrumental terms and to condition its value upon its value-to-us, which will be dependent upon its stage of development.

Many modern churches, especially "seeker-friendly" churches have tried to pare down Christianity to where it is just "be a good person, believe in Jesus and you'll be saved." They've deliberately avoided confrontation on issues like abortion because they don't want to "push anyone away."

Sure, I agree, Mike T, but this is entirely compatible with their failure to develop the full-orbed person, including that person's integrated concept of mankind, which I was deploring.

Sure, I agree, Mike T, but this is entirely compatible with their failure to develop the full-orbed person, including that person's integrated concept of mankind, which I was deploring.

It is compatible. I am just not sure it's so much a failure (which implies some sort of passivity) rather than a deliberate attempt to avoid situations which would force people to bring their personal beliefs in line with those views that are implied by Christianity such as the pro-life position. They view it as a matter of us losing souls because a pro-choicer will not embrace Christianity if they cannot keep their pro-choice views. Since their view of grace is that it is a universal get out of jail free card, it doesn't even cross their minds that since abortion is a form of murder those who practice it or condone it are already in spiritual jeopardy per Paul:

32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

It appears Lydia is right, Sage. I just re-read Robert George's "Acorns and Embryos" at the New Atlantis, and he seems to agree with her. Still feels weird, though, since I always think of an acorn as the seed of an oak tree, but never think of an embryo as the seed of a human being. Down here, it's that time of year when the acorns start falling, so as I jogged along the sidewalk last night, a whole bunch of oak tree embryos got crushed beneath my Nikes. But I was careful to avoid the lizards and frogs.

"Since their view of grace is that it is a universal get out of jail free card, it doesn't even cross their minds that since abortion is a form of murder those who practice it or condone it are already in spiritual jeopardy"
That is what really annoys me about many Arminians and others like them. I have debated these people on Facebook, and they refuse to acknowledge the necessity of good fruits as an *integral* part of one's salvation. They never acknowledge that denial of the importance of works plays into the liberal Christian handbook.

since I always think of an acorn as the seed of an oak tree, but never think of an embryo as the seed of a human being.

That's probably chiefly because human beings don't have a hard seed surrounding their embryos, meant to carry the embryo outside of the parent to be planted in soil somewhere. In other words, human beings don't have seeds at all. The seed is the whole plant thing, including the extra "food" for the developing plant embryo, the outer coat, etc. So it isn't that human embryos are seeds of human beings but that the seeds of plants contain embryo plants.

Douthat makes an excellent point about stasis as well. Human beings never pass through a stage in which their embryos are naturally in a state of suspended animation, waiting for propitious conditions to start to grow further, as is the embryo plant in a bean. Seeding plants do. Yet another reason to say that human beings simply do not have seeds at all.

Didn't I just do that one up above in this very thread? Thought I did. Of course there was a human being and then there were two, because of something rather dramatic that happened to the first one. Simple. If someone cloned you, your clone would be your twin as well. Just younger.

It is also why good culture must consist not only of the bare minimum, the absolute minimum of laws that say "do not directly and physically harm others", but of a whole complex of rules (some written, some customary) that support and encourage virtue in all its spheres so citizens are led more often than not to recognize, adhere to, and uphold the good, the true, and the beautiful, and thus can readily perceive the difference between truth and insanity, right and wrong. The virtue of its citizens is of concern of any state that doesn't want to have bunch of insane people running it.

I'm assuming the above statement was intended to elicit a response from me? (If not, then it sure seemed as if it was a continuation of our ongoing discussion.) Anyway, I'll make one comment and then leave it alone.

I agree with the "some customary" part and disagree with the "some written" part of your statement.

The "some customary" part, to me, involves the Church - in its rightful place as the authoritative entity for instilling knowledge of the good, the virtuous, the pure, the truth, and the beautiful - due to its unique position as the holder of the truths of God.

The "some written", OTOH, reflects the arbitrary will of the majority on a popularly elected legislature. Thus, "the good" - right now - is decreed by the current popular culture (which clouds every politician's re-election thoughts) to be "diversity" and "tolerance" (of non-Christian viewpoints specifically) whereas "hatred" (i.e. speaking God's truth about sin) is slowly becoming a legislatively defined "evil".

The two forces are opposed to each other. In fact, one is now in the process of superseding the other. It won't be long before we see whole tenets of Christianity defined as "hate crimes". My contention is that we need less "written" laws in order to ensure the freedom which allows the Church to thrive. IOW, we're cutting our own throats if we want the government to be the authority on "the good".

Whoa, whoa, Chucky. Tony says lots of things that aren't aimed at you. Sometimes I just throw up my hands in despair and let my threads go whither they will, but not this one. No debates over the proper role of government, etc., etc.

I will only comment on this: "The two forces are opposed to each other." is not a necessary condition of society. It is theoretically possible to have law and custom, as well as Church and state, to work cooperatively. This is, actually, one of the most essential, core ideas of Christendom, that God has so designed man that man's temporal good and his eternal good are not opposed, but compatible; that revealed truth and naturally discernible truth are all coherent with each other, and knowing the one actually helps in knowing the other; that man's capacity and authority to govern himself in temporal matters is intimately bound up with man's achievement of his ultimate end in which that authority passes into latency because not needed, an ultimate end to which he is directed by a Church authority that is subject to Divine authority.

Sorry Lydia. I could feel your wrath even before I posted my comment, but I thought "well this thread is winding down - and Tony's potshot at Libertarianism begs for a response so I'll risk it".

This will be my last comment as well...

Tony,

There have been times in the past where the government and Church saw eye to eye and the government was correct in its moral stance. That happened when the Church was strong and the majority opinion in this nation was decidedly Christian. Now, at the present time, the Church is weak and the majority opinion is evolving toward a decidedly anti-Christian view. Government laws NOW reflect THAT. The answer, if you want a more moral government, is a stronger CHURCH not a stronger government. A stronger government NOW will only suppress the Church.

There is an atheist I am arguing with who thinks I am a complete moron. He is absolutely convinced that the axiom of identity totally disproves the idea that an acorn is the same as an oak tree or a fetus is the same thing as a human person. He is totally adamant about it, and claims that this same axiom renders comparisons to teenagers or what have you unnecessary. He is also totally convinced that monozygotic twins disprove the entire notion that life begins at conception, and claims that the reason I don't agree with this is really because I never took a logic class. IT totally baffles me that somebody can believe all of this so adamantly.

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